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Nature Geoscience 1, 814–815 (1 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/ngeo369

Geomorphology: Mountains and monsoons

A. Joshua West

The idea that the vast Himalayan mountain range has profoundly influenced the evolution of the Earth system for the past 40 million years has stimulated two decades of research into mountain uplift, climate and erosion, but an understanding of the complicated web linking these processes has remained elusive. Relegated to memory is the simple textbook view that tectonics builds mountains like a sheet of paper whose edges are pushed together while erosion carves peaks and valleys in the process of washing them away.